Science

The Swain School's science program is designed to build upon a child's natural curiosity about the world in which they live. Inquiry based, hands-on activities allow students to question, to test their ideas, and to formulate answers through experimentation, “model” building and direct observation. Students in Kindergarten through fifth grades are introduced to the earth, physical and life sciences, including units in environmental stewardship and human body systems.

While this program, based on developing critical  thinking, prepares students for more advanced courses in the Middle School by introducing young learners to important scientific concepts, its main goal is to excite, inspire, and help young children develop a lifelong passion for science.

Preschool

• Making predictions; using curiosity
• Identifying environments; solving problems
• Learning about self; parts and processes of the body; the five senses
• All about me (body parts)
• Fall weather; harvest - apples, pumpkins; animal activities in fall
• Winter; hibernation; animals; snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice
• The food pyramid
• Spring; weather; wind; outdoor planting
• Animals/farm; nocturnal animals; bugs
• Dinosaurs; African animals; sea life
• Summer weather; pond life

Prekindergarten

• Making predictions; using curiosity
• Identifying environments
• Solving problems
• Learning about self; parts and processes of the body; the five senses; all about me (body parts)
• Fall weather; harvest-apples, pumpkins; animal activities in fall
• Winter; hibernation; animals; snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice; polar bears and penguins
• Foods; heart health; dental health
• Spring; wind, plants,
• Caterpillars and butterflies; spiders; insects
• Oceans

Kindergarten 

• Environmental stewardship - Earth as our home
• Five senses
• Seasons and weather; nutrition and exercise
• Dinosaurs and fossils; planets and Earth
• Stars, comets, asteroids, space shuttle, rocks
• Birds, fish and insects
• Patterns, sequencing, measuring, mixing, separating, rainbows, shadows
• Animals & their babies: habitats, tracks, signs, hibernation, migration, camouflage

Grade 1 

• Exploring materials; guided observations
• Use of lab equipment; recording data, measurement and mapping
• Inquiry based hands-on activities
• Units:  environmental stewardship; seasons and weather; health and wellness; dinosaurs to local and endangered species; planets, constellations and space; earth, properties of objects and materials, magnets, animals and insects, plants and life-cycle

Grade 2

• Environmental stewardship
• Things in our world
• Health and wellness
• Animals of long ago
• Water, water everywhere
• Heat and light
• Magnets
• Where plants and animals live
• How plants grow

Grade 3 

• Environmental stewardship – Earth as our home
• Earth’s resources – sustainability and limited resources
• Simple machines, forces, and sound
• SunWise program
• The oxygen, water, nitrogen cycles
• Energy flow in communities
• Biomes, ecosystems, natural communities, food chains and life cycles
• Introduction to taxonomy
• Plants and animals identification and patterns – dichotomous keys
• Plants and animals native and invasive in Pennsylvania
• From the creation of the solar system to dinosaurs  - to formation of coal - to today
• Derricks and drums - long-term energy storage - fossil fuels
• Impacts of fossil fuel recovery and use 

Grade 4

• Seed plants, classification, photosynthesis, plant reproduction
• Animals with backbones: vertebrates vs. invertebrates
• Cold vs. warm blooded
• Fish; amphibians; reptiles; birds; mammals
• Animal adaptations: camouflage; mimicry
• Animal behaviors
• Nervous system
• Brain divisions and functions
• Protections of nervous system
• Circulatory and respiratory systems
• The digestive system
• Minerals, rocks
• Volcanoes
• Earthquakes

Grade 5

• Environmental stewardship
• Inventions, inventors; science and technology; science in personal and social perspective
• Scientific method; Newtonian physics
• Periodic table of the elements
• Electricity; weather; pollution and environmental laws
• GAIA principles; limnology; aquatic systems
• Hands-on hydroponic gardening; food-chain management
• Contour, soil, topographical mapping; macro invertebrates; outdoor education

Grade 6

• Intro to life science
• Scientific method
• Characteristics of living things
• Chemistry of life proteins
• Genes and gene technology
• Bacteria and viruses
• Protists and fungi
• Body organization and functions
• Frog dissection

Grade 7

• Geology
• Lab safety
• Matter; minerals; rocks
• Earth’s interior; movement of earth’s crust; plate tectonics
• History of astronomy; famous astronomers
• Big-bang theory; stars; types of galaxies
• Characteristics of stars; solar system
• Planets: features and motion
• Sun; earth and moon; satellites and labs in space 

Grade 8 

• Science fair projects
• Chemistry - atomic structure; periodic table of elements
• Mendeleev and Moseley
• Atoms and bonding; chemical vs. physical changes
• Chemical reactions; chemical synthesis; kinetics
• Properties of acids and bases; mixtures and solutions
• Physics; energy and matter
• Aristotle and Newton; types of energy; heat